Philosophical Essays In Memory Of Edmund Husserl

Under the title of "Phenomenology: Continuation and Crit icism," the group of essays in this volume are presented in honor of Dorion Cairns on his 70th birthday. The contributors comprise friends, colleagues and former students of Dorion Cairns who, each in his own way, share the interest of Dorion Cairns in Husserlian phenomenology. That interest itself may be best defined by these words of Edmund Husserl: "Philosophy - wis dom (sagesse) - is the philosopher's quite personal affair. It must arise as his wisdom, as his self-acquired knowledge tending toward universality, a knowledge for which he can answer from the beginning . . . " 1 It is our belief that only in the light of these words can phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy be continued, but always reflexively, critically. For over forty years Dorion Cairns has, through his teaching and writing, selflessly worked to bring the idea expressed by Husserl's words into self conscious exercise. In so doing he has, to the benefit of those who share his interest, confirmed Husserl's judgement of him that he is "among the rare ones who have penetrated into the deepest sense of my phenomenology, . . . who had the energy and persist ence not to desist until he had arrived at real understanding.

Alfred Schutz was born in Vienna on April 13, 1899, and died in New York City on May 20, 1959. The year 1969, then, marks the seventieth anniversary of his birth and the tenth year of his death. The essays which follow are offered not only as a tribute to an irreplaceable friend, colleague, and teacher, but as evidence of the contributors' conviction of the eminence of his work. No special pleading is needed here to support that claim, for it is widely acknowledged that his ideas have had a significant impact on present-day philosophy and phenomenology of the social sciences. In place of either argument or evaluation, I choose to restrict myself to some bi~ graphical information and a fragmentary memoir. * The only child of Johanna and Otto Schutz (an executive in a private bank in Vienna), Alfred attended the Esterhazy Gymnasium in Vienna, an academic high school whose curriculum included eight years of Latin and Greek. He graduated at seventeen - in time to spend one year of service in the Austrian army in the First World War. For bravery at the front on the battlefield in Italy, he was decorated by his country. After the war ended, he entered the University of Vienna, completing a four year curriculum in only two and one half years and receiving his doctorate in Law.

The present volume contains many of the papers presented at a four-day conference held by the Husserl-Archives in Leuven in April 2009 to c- memorate the one hundred and ?ftieth anniversary of Edmund Husserl’s birth. The conference was organized to facilitate the critical evaluation of Husserl’s philosophical project from various perspectives and in light of the current philosophical and scienti?c climate. Still today, the characteristic tension between Husserl’s concrete and detailed descriptions of consciousness, on the one hand, and his radical philosophical claim to ultimate truth and certainty in thinking, feeling, and acting, on the other, calls for a sustained re?ection on the relation between a Husserlian phenomenological philosophy and philosophy in general. What can phenomenological re?ection contribute to the ongoing discussion of certain perennial philosophical questions and which phi- sophical problems are raised by a phenomenological philosophy itself? In addition to addressing the question of the relation between p- nomenology and philosophy in general, phenomenology today cannot avoid addressing the nature of its relation to the methods and results of the natural and human sciences. In fact, for Husserl, phenomenology is not just one among many philosophical methods and entirely unrelated to the sciences. Rather, according to Husserl, phenomenology should be a “?rst philosophy” and should aim to become the standard for all true science.